Fire and Ice
by greendaypumpkin
Summary: When a routine hunt goes wrong, Dean finds himself hurting in more ways than one, suffering from mental anguish and hypothermia. Can Sam get through to him in time? WARNING:Mentions of suicide. New summary just to give a better indication of the story


**Fire and Ice**

**Disclaimer:** Unfortunately they are not mine; if they were I wouldn't be so good as to share them with the world!

**Warning: **Mentions of suicide and a little bit of language, also contains spoilers for season 2

**Summary:** When a routine hunt goes wrong, Dean finds himself hurting in more ways than one. Can Sam get though to him in time? Hurt/Dean Worried/Sam.

**Note: **This is my first fanfic so I'd really appreciate any reviews and advice. I hope you enjoy.

The news reader droned on monotonously, something about the rising cost of house prices, Dean sighed and hit the off button on the remote, he couldn't think of anything more boring than house prices, but still a part of him yearned for that semblance of normalcy that he'd never experience. Pushing that dismal thought to the back of his mind he sat up and swung his legs off the dingy motel bed he rubbed his eyes and stretched, wandering aimlessly over to the window he leaned his forehead against the cool glass and gazed glumly out into the dim light. He was bored. Unbelievably, mind-numbingly bored. The middle of winter saw them stuck in a dead backwater town in the middle of a freaking snow storm that seemed never ending, they hadn't had a hunt in ages and Dean was itching to find something evil and kick it's ass, anything evil, Vampire, Poltergeist, psycho human, a cranky kitten perhaps. He shook his head, ok maybe that was going a bit far, but still he was going crazy cooped up in here, so crazy in fact that after several hours of listening to Dean moan, Sam had thrown his hands up in despair and stormed out of the room, muttering about finding a damn hunt and some food before he killed his brother himself.

So now Dean waited for Sam to return, killing the time by making fish faces in the window, he watched the snow fall _Damn it if I was Sam I'd be brooding away right now_. The thought cheered him up mildly and he launched fully into kid mode when he saw Sam trudging past the window, head down and collar up to protect against the cold. Dean threw himself into motion, flinging the door open and blabbering wildly about a hunt, food, m&ms, pie, and food, snatching the bag from Sam's hands he began to empty its contents onto the table making faces to gauge his satisfaction at the various items, so while m&ms earned an ear to ear grin, the apples that Sam had procured got a wrinkled nose and sneer.

Sam stomped snow off his boots and closed the door glaring at Dean from beneath the hair that was dripping into his face

"There, are you happy now? Can I get some peace now you've got stuff to occupy yourself with?"

"Aww, come on Sammy, you know you do better with a bag full of sugar inside you! You pick up a paper? There's gotta be something in this town that we can kill?"

"Yeah, knock yourself out, I'm going for a shower, try not to O.D on sugar while I'm in there."

Dean responded with a mouthful of half eaten chocolate. Grinning at Sam's mumblings that he was an immature idiot he sat back in a chair and crossed his legs on the table before grabbing the newspaper at the bottom of the bag.

Ten minutes later he came to the conclusion that a) this town was officially the dullest town he'd ever been in his life and b) that he had in fact eaten waaay too much chocolate. He puffed out air as he put his hands protectively over his stomach, trying to dispel the growing waves of nausea. Sam emerged from the bathroom, hair still dripping in his face but at least he looked warm now. He glanced at Dean as he rooted through his duffel for clean dry clothes

"Too much chocolate?"

Dean groaned.

"Well I did tell you, but do you listen? Nooo."

Dean glared daggers at Sam, and responded by picking up a handful of m&ms and shoving them promptly in his mouth. Sam chuckled to himself, Dean always thought he was getting one up on his brother but he'd be the one to suffer for it. He disappeared back into the bathroom to get dressed.

"So, did you find anything that you can kill?" His voice drifted out the door with the steam.

"Dude! This place is dead, apart from a bunch of school kids who can play instruments and a cow that won some sort of cow prize, I couldn't really see anything." He paused "Although I did have to stop cos I felt a bit sick."

Sam smirked, "Do you want me to finish looking for you dear" his smug smile and patronising tone of voice earned him an affectionate finger gesture from his elder brother.

xxx

"I think I found something."

Dean looked up, happy to be distracted from his thrilling game of sitting. He raised a questioning eyebrow.

"In the obits, some guy died of hypothermia while hiking in the woods"

"Well that's shocking Sam, do you think we should bust out the machetes or will the guns be enough to take the evil elements down?"

"No, Dean, it says that it looks like he just sat down and waited, they think it was suicide. Apparently there've been other deaths that are similar, no real reason for it, they just walked in and didn't walk out again."

"Huh. So what we looking at? Spirit?"

"I don't know, it could be nothing, but at least it'll give you something to do."

"Well then I'm delighted," Dean grinned "Tell you what though we should probably stock up on eating supplies if we're going hiking then, I'm out of m&m's."

Xxx

Dean was in his element, the leaves crunched underfoot as he tore after the pissed off spirit of a hiker that died and been buried in the woods 30 years ago and that had been praying on the alone and vulnerable ever since. It had been simple enough, do the research, head out into the woods, a routine salt and burn, but typically while Dean was playing at pyromaniac, he had witnessed his little brother go flying into a tree, and now he was mad and was going to make it pay. Running after the spirit he cursed _Damn it why the hell do they have to move so fast?_ He didn't really know where he was running to, all he knew is it felt like he was doing something, so armed with a shot gun full of rock salt, he took off after the bastard.

He felt the familiar pain of a stitch in his side and staggered to a halt in a clearing, leaning over to catch his breath. Shit. Where the hell was he? He'd taken off so damn fast he didn't have a clue where he'd been going never mind how to get back to Sam. Sam! Shit he'd left him alone; he wasn't doing so good either, what if the spirit decided to use him as target practice? He spun on his heel, guessing that it was the general direction he had come and that it would at least get him closer to his brother and came face to face with the ghost of the hiker. He had time to utter a gasp as he felt its eyes bore into him and the world went hazy.

xxx

"Damn it Dean" Sam muttered. What the hell was he thinking taking off like that, although he wasn't too surprised, Dean hadn't exactly been Mr Rationality since their Dad's death, always willing to throw himself into the firing line, as if it somehow alleviated his guilt. And that was just what was worrying Sam now, the spirit picked on solitary, emotionally vulnerable people and Dean was like a walking billboard right about now. It had started to snow again and Sam picked up his pace as he followed Dean's footsteps in the snow. He reached a clearing where the footprints turned into a massive blur on the ground, Sam swallowed a lump in his throat as he spotted Dean's shotgun lying on the ground and the footprints then weaved all over the clearing before continuing down a path.

"Dean!" he started running after them, eyes darting around to check that Dean wasn't sat in the undergrowth somewhere, when he emerged from the trees to the side of a partly frozen lake, with his brother's unconscious form lying in the shallow icy water.

xxx

Staring into the eyes of the spirit, Dean felt his world fall apart. A thousand thoughts and realisations invaded his mind. He was wrong, his whole being here was wrong, it was his fault his Dad was dead and he knew deep down that he was too pathetic to save Sam, everything would be better if he just wasn't here. He fell onto his backside ungracefully, his eyes staring but not seeing. He just wanted it all to be over. He let out a small grunt as he calmly realised what he had to do, to 

put everything right. He staggered to his feet and weaved his way through the trees; branches clawing at his face went unnoticed, leaving only thin trails of blood in their wake.

The next thing he knew he was standing on the edge of a non-too stable looking old jetty looking out across a lake, an icy breeze bit through his thick coat and he smiled sadly at the feeling, the feeling that all the pain could be over if he just succumbed to the cold. The water looked inviting, thick and black and endless, just one step was all it would take to be rid of the cold he felt inside and submerged into comforting warmth. He took a shuddering breath, closed his eyes and stepped off the jetty.

Dean let out an involuntary gasp as the cold bit into him like knives, causing him to swallow a mouthful of water, his chest seized up with the shock and he floundered there unmoving until his brain made an attempt to kick into gear and he was trashing his limbs and breaking the surface. Immediately he found himself under the water again and fought to stay afloat. Damn it what the hell was he thinking, he didn't want to die here in this frigging lake he was so damn selfish, what the hell would Sam have done, he wouldn't know where he was, he had to get out. He tried to suck in breath and found himself hyperventilating, he was panicking and each time he went under his frantic breathing caused him to inhale the rancid water, he saw spots dancing before his eyes, and some part of his brain told him that he needed to calm the hell down, to slow down and just breathe. He managed to suck in deeper breaths and once he managed to get some oxygen flowing to his lungs he began to slowly move towards the shore. He was so cold. What an idiot he was! Although, it would be easy, to just stop fighting, to just sink down and let the cold hand of death claim him. He even managed to screw killing himself up, he was pathetic, his Dad had died so that his sorry ass could continue to live. These thoughts plagued him all the way to shore, eventually he felt ground beneath his feet and he crawled on his hands and knees through the mud, he was so tired. _what's the point_ he thought as his strength gave out and he slumped still half in the water and let the darkness take him.

xxx

"DEAN!" Sam flung himself towards the lake and skidded to the ground next to the prone form of his brother. Rolling him onto his back, he dragged him out of the icy water and cradled him in his arms; he cautiously put his face next to Dean's, relieved to feel faint breath on his cheek.

"Dean. Dean can you hear me? Please wake up man, come on." He tapped his brother's cheek and wiped water and dirt from his face as best as he could, he was alarmed at how cold he was and pulled him closer in a desperate attempt to get him warm.

Dean's eyes flickered open. "S...Sammy? S'going on?"

"Dean thank God! What the hell happened?"

"Dunno. 'M cold Sammy." Dean was shivering slightly, his eyes drifted closed.

"Hey! Hey! Come on dude you have to stay awake can you get up?"

"Corse I can frigging get up." He suddenly seemed to realise that his baby brother was like totally invading his bubble. He shrugged Sam's arms off and attempted to get to his feet. It turned out to be a lot harder than he anticipated; he rolled over onto his hands and knees and had several unsuccessful attempts at pushing himself up from his legs, which finished up with him rolling onto his side in the dirt. Batting off Sam's attempts to help he, finally managed to ungracefully stand up by getting his backside in the air first and the rest of his body following, _which reminded him a little too closely of some of that yoga crap._ He gave a satisfied grin as he became vertical, that was cut short when a wave of dizziness hit him and he would have ended up right back where he started if it wasn't for Sam's quick reactions steadying him.

"Right then Sammy boy! Let's burn us some bones." He turned unsteadily and made to head back the way they had come when Sam grabbed his arm.

"Dean, what the hell are you talking about?"

Dean looked at Sam's hand on his arm like it was some alien growth, and then he followed the arm up to Sam's face who was staring at him like he'd grown boobs. Dean stared back, kinda confused.

"Erm. The whole point of why we're out here, stop this... um... fugly spirit from killing any more p...p...people." He realised his teeth were chattering "I mean I gotta tell ya Sammy, I'm n...n...not having to...too much fun. So let's t..take care of it and then we can be back in the sucky motel room before long all toasty and warm."

Sam grabbed Dean's other arm and crouched down slightly so that he could look him in the eye, "Dean, listen to me. We're in such deep shit right now, just forget about the spirit. You've just been in that lake for God knows how long; it's freezing and snowing again, you're gonna go into hypothermia if we don't get you warm!"

Dean was just looking at him with that confused slightly wounded expression.

"Nah. I'm f...f...fine, once we get moving..." He trailed off and seemed to be pondering something of importance.

"Dean?" Sam gave him a gentle shake; he was starting to freak out.

Dean blinked slowly, coming out of his trance "um. Yeah... we should... um... you should g..g..go."

"Ok, you're not completely insane, let's get the hell out of here." He started to pull Dean back towards the trees; at least they'd provide some shelter from the wind. Dean clumsily tugged his arm from Sam's grip.

"Come on Dean, this isn't the time for you to try and exert your masculinity." He reached for his brother again, surprised when Dean stepped back.

"Get out of here S'mmy" Dean slurred. His eyes had taken on a glazed quality that alarmed Sam all the more. "'M sorry, have to... make it...right."

"What the hell are you talking about? We have to get out of here. Both of us. Come on Dean after all we've been through these past couple of months don't do this to me by playing the hero. Now let's GO!"

Dean let Sam drag him by the arm; the soul crushing despair was back, even now he was letting Sam down, the guilt he was feeling was overwhelming. Together they stumbled through the trees, Dean barely noticed that they were moving and when his foot caught on a tree root sending him crashing to his knees he gave a small grunt and made no attempt to get up, just knelt there on the frosty earth, his shivers had increased and Sam had to physically haul him back to his feet to get them moving again.

Sam was beyond frustrated, didn't Dean understand the trouble he was in, his brother was such a stubborn uncooperative jackass sometimes. He shook his head mentally berating himself, Dean was confused, disoriented, of course he didn't understand, he was definitely in mild hypothermia, his shivering was becoming increasingly violent and he seemed to be getting even slower and more confused. He lost his train of thought when Dean hit the ground for a second time; he stooped swiftly to pick him up when Dean feebly pushed him away.

"S'ok S'mmy, think 'm defrosting, feel warmer." Dean's eyes kept slipping closed.

"Shit. Dean! Dean look at me!" eventually Dean's eyes fixed on his brothers "Can you do this?" Sam touched his thumb to his little finger. Dean stared at Sam's digits as if there was something oddly fascinating about them, and then looked down at his own, lifting his hand, way too slowly for Sam's liking in front of his face, his brow creased as he attempted to mimic Sam's movement, finding it damn near impossible.

"Huh." He muttered "never realised that was so hard. How you do that Sam?"

"Dean, listen to me. We have to get you warm, you're going into deeper hypothermia, your muscles aren't working so good, this is freaking serious." He tried to drag Dean to his feet again but was rewarded with another pathetic shove.

"No S'mmy. Y...you h...h...h...have to l...leave me. J...just let it h...h...happen."

"Let what happen? Dean come on quit screwing around."

"Let me die."

The words were said so quietly that Sam wasn't sure that Dean had spoken at all.

"What did you say?"

"Just walk away Sam. It's for the b...b...best. I sh...Should be d...d...dead. Put everything right." His eyes slipped closed again.

Sam stood there in the snow; open mouthed staring at his brother. He couldn't believe this. His strong big brother wanted to give up and die; he didn't know he'd gotten this bad. Determination took over his shock; there was no way in hell that he was just going to sit back and watch him just give up. He grabbed Dean under the arms and tried to get him to stand, but whether from the cold searing through him or his desire to die, Dean wouldn't stand, just flopped in Sam's arms. Sam clenched his jaw and heaved Dean over his shoulder in a fireman's lift. Damn it his brother was no light weight. Grunting under the strain, he moved as fast as he could through the trees. Dean made a vain attempt at struggling, kicking Sam uselessly, (although a well placed kick to the crotch nearly 

sent them both to the ground and would have done if Dean's strength wasn't so depleted.) eventually he stopped struggling and just shivered violently on Sam's shoulder.

Sam was getting desperate; he didn't know where the hell he was going and Dean seemed to be getting worse by the minute, never mind the fact that he didn't know how long he could keep carrying him before his strength gave out. Suddenly a powerful force knocked him from behind, he let out an "oof" of surprise as he and Dean sprawled on the ground. Blood gushing from his nose, Sam pushed himself up to his knees, in his haste he hadn't noticed that they were near the grave of the hiker, and he'd completely forgotten about the pissed off spirit that was the cause of this mess. He barely had time to register these thoughts when he felt himself flying helplessly into the shallow grave of the hiker. He came down hard on his side, hitting his head on the grave wall. Dazed he pushed himself up into a sitting position, and held his head in his hands while he waited for his vision to stop swimming.

He must have hit his head harder than he thought, what was he supposed to be doing again? He knew it was important. A soft whimper from nearby brought everything rushing back to him. _DEAN!_ Tentatively he poked his head out of the grave, afraid of what he might find. His eyes widened in alarm when he saw his brother cowering next to a tree, his knees drawn up to his chest and his arms wrapped protectively around them. His eyes were squeezed tightly shut and he was making pained whimpering sounds that broke Sam's heart. The spirit was standing above Dean, slowly it leaned down, and put a hand to Dean's cheek, Sam heard it whisper a soft "Shhhhh." At this Dean seemed to relax he opened his eyes and nodded his head slowly, and then to Sam's utter horror Dean began to remove his clothing, exposing himself to the cruel elements even further.

xxx

Dean didn't know why the hell Sam was insisting on this charade, he was going to die, he wanted to die, still if trying to save him helped the kid sleep at night when he was gone, then fine. He stopped kicking and struggling and instead wondered how Sam was so damn strong that they were going at quite a pace through the woods while he was dangling off his baby brother's shoulder. He wasn't surprised when they both fell to the ground; he knew it wasn't going to work; the only thing that did surprise him was how calm he was feeling about the fact that he was going to die. Good. He wanted to be rid of the guilt, the shame and being so damn tired all the time. He wanted to see his Dad.

He was dimly alarmed however, when he saw Sam hurtling through the air and into the grave, he was such a failure, it was his job to look after Sammy and he couldn't do it. He drew his knees up to his chest and wrapped his arms around them; he tried to block everything out, all the thoughts, all the pain, and the cold. An icy sensation on his cheek and a soothing sound caused him to open his 

eyes. Immediately he relaxed as he clearly understood what he had to do, what would help him sleep faster, he began to remove his jacket; it would all be over soon.

xxx

Sam knew he had to act fast, he should have known that it was the spirit draining away his brothers fight, but even while he was telling himself this, a part of him felt that the ghost had just pushed him over the edge. He threw himself into action, he was out of the grave and reaching for the fallen shotgun that he had discarded earlier that day, he took aim and emptied a round of rock salt into the ghost's ass, hoping it would buy both him and Dean some time. He had to get rid of this bastard if he was going to save his brother.

Running on auto pilot, he salted the bones and was about to torch the sucker when hands grabbed him and sent him flying backwards again, he groaned in frustration, _Eugh! This was getting to be a very inconvenient habit._

He was about to get back to his feet when suddenly the spirit was in front of him, eyes boring into his soul, he felt waves or terrible despair wash over him, the spirit touched its hand to his face, bringing him to his knees, he knew it was going to kill him, but part of him didn't care, he just wanted all the loss and sacrifice to be over. The pain threatened to consume him, he was about to give up when the spirit suddenly stood, gasped and burst into flames, it was obliterated along with most of his anguish.

xxx

Dean was struggling with his belt buckle; his fingers were so numb he couldn't make them work properly. A distressed noise reached through the haze in his mind. He looked up to see Sammy on the losing end of a vicious staring match with the spirit, and through all the confusion and desire to give up, one thing was clear, he had to save his baby brother, it was his job. He crawled on shaking limbs to the graveside; it took him several fumbling attempts to grasp the fallen lighter in his uncooperative fingers. He could hear Sam's gasps and grunts, and need to save his brother spurred him on. He was having a hard time getting it to work in his numb hands, but managing to hold it in one hand, he used his other to ignite the lighter, which took some time and gave him one hell of a burn. He somehow found himself on his feet and dropped the lighter into the grave, powerful, strong flames consuming the corpse.

xxx

Sam looked up and saw Dean standing by the grave, wearing only soaking jeans that he clearly hadn't had the muscle to remove. Hurriedly, Sam pushed himself up and ran over to his brother as Dean collapsed to the ground exhausted; Sam stood for a moment watching him shiver violently, his lips, fingertips and toes on his bare feet were blue and there was an angry burn on his hand from where he'd had trouble working the lighter. Sam pushed away the urge to ask Dean if he was ok, he didn't know if he'd ever be ok again, but he had to take care of Dean's physical state to give him chance to worry about the state of his mental health.

Knowing there was no way in hell they'd make it back to the car in like this, they were losing light fast and the temperature was dropping even further. Sam dropped to the ground and immediately began tugging off Dean's jeans, Dean gave a small grunt of protest and tried to shuffle backwards, but he had no strength in his arms and ended up falling onto his back and shivering helplessly, which admittedly made it a lot easier to rid Dean of his water logged denim, although there was a brief moment when Sam believed he would have been scarred for life if Dean's boxers had slipped down any further.

Dean lay on his back while Sam undressed him, he couldn't quite make sense of what was going on, everything around him seemed to be blurred by the snow and the ash, he watched as they danced together, the fire and ice cancelling each other out. He felt pathetic lying there shaking, but for the life of him he couldn't make his brain and body cooperate, he wanted to tell Sam that he was sorry, sorry for everything he put him through, but his brain and his mouth had always had a hard time getting on, and even though the spirit was gone, a part of him still felt like dying.

He was vaguely aware of Sam pulling him into a sitting position and his trembling arms being tugged through one of Sam's many shirts and then he was in Sam's arms, being carried like a freaking baby, which he did _so_ not care for, but he was powerless to do anything about it. His brother moved him swiftly to a nearby tree where the snow on the ground had been melted by the heat from the fire. Sam set Dean on the ground and bundled him into his thick winter coat and sat with his back against the tree, he pulled Dean into his arms, wrapping his legs around his trembling body, he nestled Dean's head under his chin and held him tightly.

Dean was helpless to do anything, under normal circumstances his brother would have received a punch to the face for such close physical contact, but he was so cold and so lost that he welcomed the touch. Unable to move his frozen arms to reach out to his brother, he pressed himself further against him, he guessed that Sam noticed because if it was possible he tightened his grip on his Dean and held his shivering form against his chest, like he was trying to anchor his brother to life.

Dean tried to absorb as much warmth as he could, his shivering was lessening, Sam was warm against him, and the fire from the grave provided some much needed heat.

_Who would have thought that fire would be so multifunctional today_? He chuckled at the odd thought but it caught in his throat and he let out a strangled sob instead.

"Dean?" Sam was alert for any change in Dean, good or bad, and that didn't sound good, "Dean what's wrong?"

He expected a cocky response, he expected Dean to shrug it off, tell him it was nothing and carry on bottling everything up. What he didn't expect was for Dean to let out another anguished sob, and another and another, until the tears streamed down his face freely, he turned his head and buried his face in Sam's chest, letting the pain of the past few months come flooding out of him with the tears.

Sam was beyond freaked; he'd never seen his brother like this before, Dean bottled his emotions up, he'd always wished that he would open up a bit more but this was going to the extreme and it worried the hell out of him. Not knowing quite what to do, he just held him, running a hand through Dean's hair he tried his best to comfort him.

"Shh. It's ok. It's ok. I'm here. Come on Dean, you'll be ok." He repeated his various mantras, unaware that he was even saying them, he squeezed his eyes shut and tried to blink away his own tears that were threatening to fall, he had to be strong now, he couldn't fall apart when Dean needed him so badly.

After an eternity of cradling Dean's distressed body, Sam felt his brother's heaving cries die down until he was left shuddering from the cold and the grief. He listened to Dean sucking in great rattling breaths and they remained that way until Dean had warmed up sufficiently that Sam could leave him huddled in his coat while he scurried around finding more wood to toss onto the corpse to keep the fire going and retrieving Dean's scattered clothes and hanging them on branches to dry off, he was relieved that his jeans had lost most of their moisture already from where he had carelessly flung them on a branch in advance.

Satisfied that they'd warm slightly, Sam returned to his brother. Dean was sitting where he'd left him, his shivers had calmed dramatically, and his face was now a slight shade of pink from the emotion and the cold, which to Sam was so much better than blue. Dean was staring at a spot on the 

ground like he found it fascinating, his mouth pressed into a small line and jaw clenched, Sam knew that he was trying to reconstruct his walls and if he was going to get through to his brother he had to try and do it now.

"Dean," Sam squatted down in front of him, "I think it's time you talk to me man."

"It's fine Sam." Dean's voice was hoarse, he avoided Sam's eyes.

"No it isn't. I didn't know you'd gotten this bad." He paused, "so bad that you'd want to kill yourself."

Dean stared hard at his spot on the ground.

"Dean, please talk to me. I need you to talk to me, let me help you." Sam watched a muscle working in Dean's jaw.

"I don't..." Dean cleared his throat, "I don't want to kill myself."

Sam breathed one hell of a sigh of relief. But it didn't look like Dean was going to say more so Sam prodded gently.

"Come on Dean, this has been eating you up inside, you need to talk about it before you explode."

Dean shot a weakened _you're taking the piss_ look but relented.

"It's just..." he licked his lips and averted his gaze "I'm tired Sammy. I mean, I shouldn't even be here, Dad should be. He was better than me, a better hunter, a better person; he did so much more than I ever could. And it's not fair that I have to live this pathetic life while he's suffering for saving me when he did so much good."

Sam searched for the right words "Dean, how can you think so little of yourself, you were his Son, he would have done anything for you, he loved you."

Finally their eyes met, both filled with the threat of tears.

"I wasn't worth it Sam."

Sam grabbed his brother's shoulders "No, Dean, don't you dare think that, you are not worthless, think of how many people are alive because of you. Think about how many times you've saved me. I mean, you gave me a childhood Dean, you had to grow up so fast, you were never really a kid, but you always looked out for me, tried to make sure my life was as normal as you could make it. I'd have been screwed without you. You're my hero Dean."

Dean blinked, taken aback by the frankness of Sam's little speech. As the words sunk in his bottom lip quivered slightly before he smiled.

"Dude, you are _so_ gay."

Sam let out a small, genuine laugh.

"Yeah well, I think you're overtly masculine behaviour is just a cover."

"Yeah, shut up Sammy, help me up, I want to get into a good hot bath."

"Sure, would you like me to find you some bubbles and popuri, so you can smell all girly?"

"Bite me!" Dean looked his brother in the eye "Sam,"

"Yeah Dean?"

"Thanks."

xxx

Later on in the motel room, when Dean felt that some heat had finally returned to his bones, he stood at the window huddled in one of Sam's large hoodies, watching the snow fall and thinking about his brother's words. Sam was breathing heavily on the bed, crashed out fully clothed.

Dean turned towards his sleeping brother; he gently removed his shoes and pulled the blankets over him. He sat down on the bed and watched him sleep; he could see the little boy that he tried to hard to protect when Sam was asleep. He moved one hand through his brother's unruly mop of hair.

"It's ok Sammy," he whispered softly "I'll always look after my little brother. I promise."

_Several months later when Dean held his dying brother in his arms, trying desperately to get him to cling to life, trying to stop the blood that was pouring out of Sam's back, his mind flashed back to that day and he remembered his promise. He would look after his little brother, no matter what._

The End

Xxx

Thanks for reading; this is my first time writing pretty much anything in a while so I really hope you enjoyed it, thanks for your time.


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